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Genres, a form of categorisation, have always been for the benefit of audiences, institutions and critics above authors. The reader welcomes the categorising of stories to ensure they access the tropes and conventions they enjoy. The genre-fiction author, largely but not always, sets out to follow those conventions to meet reader expectations. The critic often […]

The hardboiled genre of crime fiction has traditionally been steeped in a masculine ideology with its rigid loner code, the mythical detective an urban cowboy (ride in, solve the problem, ride out again), tough, cynical, and ever more isolated from his corrupt society. Controversies have arisen however as to whether generic conventions can remain intact […]